Author's Notes: I'm glad you all remembered me after so long! I hope you're excited for the next chapter!

Gotta admit, I don't know which surprises me more; that so many people recognized the name Morgan Moonscar, or that nobody seemed to get the other reference built into him.

Antipo: Less a reference to Peter Lorre and more to the caricature of him that appeared in some Bugs Bunny cartoons.

As always, this fic has a TVTropes page and I have a Ko-fi page, so support for either or both or those would really help me out!

Chapter 20: Racing Through the Dead End Race!

As the sun rose over the sea and painted the waves in brilliant colors, life bustled over the Stormbringer as the Kamikaze Pirates got themselves ready for the start of the Dead End Race. Ranma stood on the deck next to the ship's wheel, cracking some stiffness from his joints as he took in the organized chaos around him.

Harumi ran nimbly across the spars, unfurling the sails in anticipation of the driving wind that would soon be upon them. Miriam leaned over the side to grab the anchor that Ryoga had just winched up from the depths in order to slot it into its resting position. Ukyo, Umok and Nabiki busied themselves with the endless array of ropes that kept the sails functioning. Kodachi manned the helm, studying the Eternal Pose they had received the previous evening, whilst Shampoo stood to the side in her hybrid Zoan form, waiting for the moment she might need to spring into action as the Stormbringer's secret power source.

"Looking good, guys! Stay on your toes, though; we don't know when this wind's gonna hit, but when it does, it's gonna be big!" Ranma shouted to his crew, receiving a mixed chorus of acknowledgements in response.

"Sailing up a mountain... I must say, if we hadn't already experienced Reverse Mountain, I'd find this almost impossible to believe," Kodachi observed conversationally.

"Well, we knew coming in that the Grand Line was gonna be weird," Ranma noted.

"This less weird than that Mandlebrot rainbow we saw last week," Shampoo interjected.

"Yeah, or that screaming tornado," Ranma added, nodding absently as he did so.

After that, the conversation died away, an anticipatory silence falling over the Stormbringer and its crew. The tension built until it was almost palpable... and then, inevitably, it broke.

There was no warning... or, if it was, it would have required the finely attuned senses of a weather expert to detect them, and none of the Kamikaze Pirates could lay claim to such a title. One moment, the sea was calm and the breeze all but non-existent. And then the wind roared into life, whipping the waves into a churning mass of whitecaps. The sails snapped to life with such vigor that even the trained martial artists of the crew found themselves nearly thrown from their feet as the Stormbringer surged into life.

Within seconds, the Stormbringer had surged up through the main river mouth and was plunging into a dark cavern from whence the waters emerged. Ranma whooped in delight as the wind tore at his hair, grinning like a madman as the adrenaline burned through his veins.

"Hang on, guys, we're just getting started!"

It was a meaningless caution, but none of them fired back at their captain for his slip of the tongue, as they were all in a similarly fired up mood. The walls of the cavern raced past them now, the gloom illuminated by the brightness at its far end. There was nothing to say or even really to do except hang on for dear life.

And then the cavern fell away and the Kamikaze Pirates found themselves surging up the river through the heart of the city. Small docks and streets alike were crammed to the brim with men, women and children of all ages, screaming and shouting, hooting and hollering, throwing well-wishes, curses, threats, jeers, cheers, and a hundred other comments aside.

"Talk about a parade start!" Kodachi cried in glee, belting out her cackling laugh as she bathed in the adulation and excitement of the crowd.

"And just think of how they'll act when we reach the finish line!" Ranma cried in response.

Even Ryoga was grinning with excitement at this point, the spectacle and the adrenaline rush working its magic even on his legendarily downbeat heart.

From his ever-present perch in the crow's nest, Umok had the best view of their surroundings. "I can see the other ships now! We must be getting close to the convergence point - wow, that's a big one! You can tell Gasparde was a Marine, alright!"

Spurred on by the imp's words, the rest of the crew turned their attention to their starboard. Sure enough, visible through the buildings was the towering triple-masted form of a Navy frigate with a golden draconic figurehead, the Navy emblem on its foresail crossed out in a crimson X shape that was mirrored by the two crossed red swords on its mainsail. But that wasn't what truly caught their attention... no, that was a tall, steely chimney, from which a thick cloud of black smoke was pouring.

"What in the name of Davy Jones' Locker is that?" Miriam demanded, her pride as a shipwright wounded by the realization that she couldn't identify the strange growth emerging from the ship's rear.

"A steam engine! This Gasparde guy has steam power on his side! No wonder he's won every last race!" Ranma cursed, slamming his fist into a nearby wall and accidentally cracking the wood.

"So much for your secret weapon, Ranma!" Ryoga jeered.

"Calm down, both of you! Yes, this presents an obstacle, but have faith - the race hasn't even begun yet! We may yet prove our superiority over this foe," Kodachi declared proudly.

They didn't have any time to dwell on this sudden revelation of Gasparde's advantage, however, as a ship suddenly slid out of its native stream to fall alongside their Stormbringer's starboard side. The newcomer was a strange vessel with a wide bow bearing two figureheads separated by a gap, almost as if the normal design of bow and stern had been reversed. Each figurehead was identical; a jawless skull with a purple topknot and a sun design painted around its right eye socket.

Mocking jeers rose from the newcomer, led by the obvious captain; a tall-browed man with a sun design tattooed on his chest and a second around his right eye, shaved bald save for a long, braided topknot that fell down to his shoulders as a tail.

"Useless rookies! You should have stayed in the bay, where it was safe! You won't even make it over the Grand Fall!" this captain cried out to them over the sounds of the wind and the waves.

"Sez you!" Ranma shot back, striving to make up for in passion what he lacked in articulate rebuttals.

Before the two captains could continue their exchange of insults, a second ship slid up on the Stormbringer's port side; a much larger vessel, preceded by the bastard lovechild of a giant drill and a battering ram that slowly rotated as the waters crashed against it. The hulking figure of its captain, an orca-featured fishman, leered over the deck at Miriam and called out to her.

"Sailing with humans?! You're a disgrace to all fishmen!"

Ranma bristled with indignation, but before he could shoot back what he thought of the orca-man captain, Miriam took a deep breath and proceeded to spew forth a five minute tirade of profanities that virtually blistered the air, making her crewmates and the fishmen on the other ship recoil in shock. Even the fishman captain was visibly taken aback by the sheer scope of invective directed against himself, his ancestry, and his sexual appetites, jaw hanging low in shock before he shook his head and rallied himself.

"Your mother would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you using that language!" he cried.

"Gyah-hahahahaha! Not likely! Her mom taught her ninety percent of her profanities!" boomed a thunderous voice, making both crews jump in shock.

"How did a pair of giants sneak up on us?!" An incredulous Nabiki demanded, for sure enough, the source was the two giants from the previous evening, riding on the lovechild of a sailing ship and a windsurfer to the port of the fishman vessel.

"Hiya Bobby, Pogo! Good to see ya!" Miriam called, waving to them.

"Well, well, if it ain't our little pollywog! So, you finally left Shay-Lot, huh?" Bobby replied, grinning broadly down at the smaller wotan.

"Yeah, it's been loads of fun - good luck in the race!" Miriam replied.

"Same to you, pollywog!" Pogo declared.

As both crews bent their attention back to the task of managing their upward ascent in the increasingly crowded stream, Miriam stopped as she felt a hand nudging her thigh. Looking down, she saw Harumi looking up at her with an intrigued smile on his face.

"Little pollywog, hmm?" He asked playfully.

The wotan blushed lightly, before defensively shooting back, "It was a nickname I picked up when I was younger!"

"I think it's cute," Harumi told her.

"Ohhh... get back to work!" she snapped at him, but she was still blushing as she said it.

By now, the whole fleet of racers had been assembled, and the river they were taking was sharply inclining, tilting the ships upwards until they were almost vertical, timbers groaning in protest all around.

"Stay tough, guys, this is just like Reverse Mountain! ...Only a lot less damp!" Ranma called to his crew.

Finally, they reached the very peak of the mountain, and the reverse side of the island lay before them, a single river snaking its way down to the exit bay on the far side. There was just one tiny little detail to overcome first...

"That bloated misbegotten tick never said anything about a sheer drop!" Nabiki screamed in protest, even as the Stormbringer reached the edge of the outcropping and plunged bow-first over it, joining the other ships in their headlong descent down the mountain.

"We're gonna be fish food!" Ryoga wailed, clinging to the mast with such desperation his fingers gouged grooves in the wood. All around him, the other Kamikaze Pirates were similarly hanging on for grim death, with the exception of Umok, who was floating casually along with an irritating smugness on his otherwise invisible face.

"I resent that remark!" Miriam bellowed indignantly, holding onto the spar with one hand and clutching Harumi to her side with the other, where the Femille-born swordsman was politely trying not to suffocate in her overly abundant sideboob.

Down and down they fell, until they hit the surface of the exit stream with a mighty splash; around them, vessels that hadn't been so lucky in their angle of descent landed on the shores to either side and disintegrated into flying timbers and shattered debris. But many of the pirates who had started the race had been more competent, and so the race was still thick with ships plunging towards the bay. And with the momentum they'd picked up, the survivors were truly surging forward.

"Ooogh... hic! I don't feel so good," Kodachi moaned, distinctly green in the face at this point.

"I think that just took ten years off of my life," Nabiki sobbed.

"Gripe and groan later, girls! We got bigger problems!" Ranma barked.

The two of them turned icy glares on their captain; boyfriend privileges or no, they weren't going to let that stand! ...Until they saw his grim expression and looked past him to see what had him worried.

All around the Kamikaze Pirates, combat was breaking out all over the stream. Right in front of them, two ships exchanged a mutual broadside that reduced them both to sinking wrecks, whilst up ahead, the fishman vessel tore a smaller pirate ship to shreds with its drill-ram. Ships slammed into each other, either to board for a ferocious melee or just trying to wreck a smaller vessel, and the air was filled with a cavalcade of cannonfire.

"Looks like the race starts for real, here! Ryoga, you guard our stern - use the cannonballs first, save the Shishi Hokodan for a real emergency! Miriam, take the starboard side; I'll take the port! The rest of you, focus on getting us through the melee, and don't forget that this river bends, so we need to stay on our toes!"

Galvanized by their captain's orders, the Kamikaze Pirates scrambled to their assigned places. Their quick reactions proved the downfall of two pirate ships that had thought to find easy prey in the smaller Stormbringer; a deftly aimed cannonball from Ryoga smashed through the waterline of a ship that was trying to ram them from behind, scuttling it almost instantly, whilst Miriam's whirling anchors stove in the hull of a second ship and caused it to crash into a third, leaving them both out of the race.

Ironically, on reflection, this portion of the race would be the one that the Kamikaze Pirates would be hardest pressed to remember, simply because of how chaotic it was. Between jockeying to advance their position, steering around the many surprisingly sharp turns, and fighting off any pirates who were stupid enough to try and attack their ship, they were just kept so busy that it was hard to really focus on what was going on.

It didn't help that they didn't really know the names or reputations of any of the other pirates around them. The one thing that did stand out was when Bobby and Pogo, unable to turn, attempted to jump a curve in the river by using a crashed ship's overturned hull as a ramp to shoot all the way out into the open ocean beyond. It almost worked... in that they got airborne. Unfortunately, they fell notably short of the water and instead crashed into the city, disappearing in a mighty cloud of dust.

Watching this, Harumi winced sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Miriam..."

"Nah, don't be! Those knuckleheads were always crashing - they've walked away from worse than this! Sucks for them, though; they'll never fix that contraption of theirs in time to get back in the race," the wotan laughed.

Finally, the Stormbringer reached the bay and roared out into the open sea. Perhaps as much as nine tenths of the aspiring racers had been wiped out at this point, leaving only the fiercest, strongest and smartest ships to depart from Hannabal and begin the long trek to Parthia.

For whatever reason, the fighting died at this point, the remaining racers instead preferring to concentrate on their sailing. Not that the Kamikaze Pirates weren't grateful for the respite after the frantic minutes of the initial departure from Hannabal.

"Alright, good job, guys, we're through the first obstacle - rest up, but keep on your toes, we got a long race to run from here," Ranma cheerfully announced.

Shampoo hopped over to Ranma, a quizzical look on her face. "You no want Shampoo to man engine, airen?"

Ranma shook his head. "Nah. I'd bet on your legs over any crude steam engine any day for a short burst, but those coal-burners can keep up the pace as long as they've got fuel... No, best to save you for a trump card. We just gotta play it smart and work with the wind for now. So first things first; check the hold and see if you can find any leaks. We don't need that slowing us down if we're going to win this race."

The zoan merrily raised her hand in acknowledgement, "Shampoo go!"

Moments later...

The Chinese Amazon turned zoan silently stalked through the gloomy depths of the Stormbringer, ears swiveling atop her scalp as she listened for the faintest gurgles or splashes that could signal leaks. Her cat-like eyes rendered the gloom as bright as day, allowing her to move with effortless grace through the darkness.

'No sign of any major damage... Miriam and her kinsfolk truly are masters of their craft. A lesser vessel would never have endured a drop like that without taking any damage... wait! What was that?'

Her instincts as a martial artist honed to a razor's edge by her bestial nature, she locked onto the faint sound she had heard - a small, fast-paced heartbeat, the faint whispering susurrus of somebody trying to pant quietly, and even a lingering unfamiliar scent. To the zoan, all of these signs pointed to only one conclusion: an intruder.

Silently as a ghost, the cabbit zoan slunk forward, following her ears and her nose as she tracked her prey to a topless crate that had been covered in a rough tarpaulin. She stood right in front of it, cracked her neck, and then broke the silence.

"You pick wrong ship to stowaway on. Come out now and we let you off easy at next island, okay?"

To her lapine hearing, the heartbeat within the chest resounded like a caffeine-fueled drum solo. With such forewarning combined with her pre-Devil Fruit training, it was no wonder that when a dirty boy in tattered, hard-worn clothing erupted from the chest, screaming and brandishing a pistol, Shampoo was already in motion. She wove around the bullet and grabbed her would-be assailant's face in one hand, having shifted in mid-stride to her hybrid form. Her talons pricked the skin of the kid's cheeks as she tightened her drip and dragged him bodily from his hiding place, the foolish youth clawing desperately at Shampoo's wrist in a futile attempt to break her unyielding grip.

"That not very nice," the Chinese Amazon lightly scolded her would-be assailant.

"Shampoo?! What's going on down there, we heard a shot!" Ranma's worried voice echoed down from above.

"Shampoo fine, airen! Just find little rat sneaking around... we coming up!"

Pausing only to yank the pistol away from her captive with her free hand before the kid could get a bright idea like trying to shoot her at point-blank range, Shampoo briskly made her way back the way she had come. Her captive didn't think much of being bundled along like a sack of potatoes, but couldn't exactly do much beyond letting out a series of muffled complaints.

With a few rabbit-like leaps, Shampoo vaulted through the hold and up onto the deck, where she deposited her captive in a heap on the floor. The kid shook his head, fiercely blinking back tears, and glared up at the assembled crew.

"Who the hell is this?!" Ryoga demanded bluntly.

"Is stowaway that Shampoo find in hold. Try to shoot Shampoo. Is very bad boy," the zoan calmly explained.

"Seriously? What kind of dumbass would stowaway aboard a pirate ship?" Ryoga wondered aloud.

"Maybe he wants to join us?" A grinning Ranma jokingly suggested.

"Shut up, asshole! There's no way I'd sign on with a crew like yours - I came here to collar one of you weaklings for your bounty!" The kid defiantly screeched, waving his fists in futility. In the light of day, it was possible to get a better look at him; young, with blue eyes and the hint of red hair peeking out from under a baggy white hat with an unfastened chin-strap, which he wore with a shapeless blue collared shirt and pants held up by suspenders. The whole ensemble was absolutely filthy, coated with coal dust and smeared in various places with blotches of oil.

A silence fell over the assembled Kamikaze Pirates at his words, the crew collectively looking down on him with cold, expressionless eyes. Finally, Ranma spoke up.

"...You came here to collect a bounty. On one of us."

The boy blanched a little under his coating of muck, but tried to spit defiantly at the young captain. "That's right! I need cash, and you lot looked like easy pickings, bunch of no-name yokels - ya-haaay!"

He screamed in shock as a frowning Miriam reached down and pinched the ruff of his shirt between forefinger and thumb, lifting him up to be eye level with her before turning him around so that they were face to face with each other.

"Would you care to rephrase that?" the unamused wotan rumbled, lips pulled back just enough to flash a hint of pearly white and amber-hued eyes boring into her captive's soul.

The boy went white as a sheet, or at least a grubby gray considering how filthy he was, and wailed in fear, "I'm sorry! Please, please, don't eat me!"

Miriam's expression grew thunderous. "Okay, kid? As both a giant and a fishman, that's deeply offensive. I don't eat people, not even humans. Understand?"

The boy swallowed and nodded nervously. Miriam continued to scowl, but lowered him back to the deck, where his legs immediately buckled beneath him and he fell flat on his rear.

"Wow, you sure picked the wrong ship," Nabiki dryly observed.

"Why would you even try a stupid stunt like this in the first place? What could you possibly need money for so badly that you'd try to pick a fight with a pirate, never mind a whole crew of them?" Ukyo demanded.

Their would-be assassin opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and stubbornly looked away, refusing to say anything.

"Don't feel like chatting, huh? Alright, fine, we don't really care that much. Just stay out of trouble and we'll let you go when we land on Partia, but right now, we got a race to win, so let's get back to it, guys!" Ranma declared, clapping his hands to accentuate the command.

As the Kamikaze Pirates began to bustle around him turning themselves to the business of steering, the kid simply hunkered down on the deck, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face behind them, doing his best to shut out the world.

"...I'm sorry, grandpa..." He whispered to himself, choking back his tears.

Shampoo's long, super-sensitive ear twitched and she glanced at the stowaway. When he refused to budge, however, she turned and went back to her duties.

Hours later...

Racing in sailing ships was a lot more sedate than its multifarious counterparts; even the Grand Line was apparently in a forgiving mood, as the only weather anomaly that the Kamikaze Pirates had faced so far was an unseasonal snowstorm that was gently blanketing their ship in white, fluffy snow. The contestants could really do little more than try to catch whatever favorable gusts of wind or currents that chance blew their way and attempt to gain (or keep) an edge in speed.

But, inevitably, the false peace that had descended over the surviving racers since their departure from Hannabal Island had to end. And it was typical Kamikaze Pirate luck that it ended when cannonballs came whistling through the air towards them, fortunately missing the ship and splashing harmlessly into the ocean.

"Battle stations!" Ranma roared, even as the hulking form of the fishman pirate ship "Web Panic" came swinging in towards them, clearly intent on pulling alongside - or at least blasting them to pieces with a broadside.

They were absently aware that the other ships were scattering, but in the face of imminent combat, the Kamikaze Pirates had other things to worry about.

"Kodachi, get us in close - they want a fight, then we'll give them one! Ryoga, take out those cannons!" Ranma barked, gesturing to emphasize his commands.

"I told you this was a bad idea!" Ryoga screamed back, even as he took a stance on the deck facing the incoming ship. Unearthly shadows writhed like living things across his skin, undulating across his arms and slithering to his cupped hands, where they kindled into life as a sickly green light that pulsated in time with Ryoga's heartbeat.

"Shishi Hokodan!" Ryoga roared, thrusting his hands forward. A massive bolt of flickering hellfire erupted with the gesture, the sphere of emerald flame flying through the air and slamming into the side of the Web Panic like the fist of an angry god. Wood was reduced to a cloud of splinters, and cannons fared little better, being crushed into inoperable masses of flattened metal.

"Ah, you worry too much, Ryoga! Moko Takabisha!" Ranma cried in response, launching his own incandescent bolt of ki energies that struck just shy of where Ryoga's had done, effectively gutting half of the Web Panic and leaving its cannon deck a mass of wreckage that spilled into the sea.

But even a wound like that wasn't sufficient to sink the significantly larger Web Panic. Even as it groaned like a wounded beast, it lurched through the waves towards them, pulling alongside. A chorus of savage whoops and howls filled the air as the crew boiled forth from the mangled ship like ants pouring from a damaged nest, surging onto the Stormbringer's deck and rushing headlong into battle, snapping and snarling in battle-lust.

Undaunted by the superior numbers, the Kamikaze Pirates roared back as they launched their own counterattack, determined to push the invaders back into the sea.

Ryoga grinned a dark, almost feral grin as fishmen rushed towards him, an almost incomprehensible array of scales and gills, webbing and fins, fangs, claws, and fishy protrusions.

"C'mon then; I need someone to take it out on!" cried the Eternally Lost Boy, even as he hurtled into the ranks of his would-be attackers in a bonecrushing counter-charge. His fists flew like meteors, smashing into near-human faces and crunching into torsos, scattering his foes in semi-conscious heaps as he waded through the ranks of his enemies.

A rare feeling of triumph flooded Ryoga's soul and spurred him on in his efforts. He barely registered the few strikes from fist, claw or rusty cutlass that landed on his Bakusai Tenketsu-hardened skin, and those few skilled enough to get his attention that way got more than they bargained for, usually in the form of being used to bludgeon their comrades unconscious. Within moments, there was just one shape moving in Ryoga's peripheral vision, and he whirled to face this last threat with a hearty battle cry...

That trailed off in dismay as he actually saw who was confronting him, his fist stopping mid-punch.

"...Seriously? What the heck are you doing out here? You could have gotten hurt!" Ryoga complained.

His near-victim scowled at him. They were the smallest fishman Ryoga had seen yet, a skinny little muddy-green boy who couldn't have had more than a few inches on the child who'd stowed away aboard the Stormbringer the previous evening.

"Don't take me lightly, human!" warned the runty fishman.

"Yeah, yeah; I got my pride, and I'm not beating up a kid, even if that kid does travel with pirates. Run along, will ya? I got real opponents to face," Ryoga scoffed, turning his back on the diminutive fishman to look for somebody worth hitting.

With his back turned, Ryoga couldn't see the murderous expression on the fishman's face. Nor could he hear him over the cacophony of the battle as the fishman inhaled impossibly deep lungfuls, his upper torso and arms swelling and bloating like a balloon, arms extending until they were longer than he had originally been tall, muscles piling upon muscles, chest broadening until he was beefier than even Ryoga. But he certainly felt it when the newly bulked pufferfishman sucker-punched him in the back of the head, launching him across the deck like he'd been shot from a cannon.

"Human scum," rumbled the fishman, even his voice now a deep, threatening baritone compared to the reedy, high-pitched voice he'd sported before. He cracked his knuckles and lumbered away, comparatively tiny feet bolstered by oversized arms, but only made it a few steps before he felt somebody tapping him on his back.

"Y'know... you'd think I'd know better after all the times Ranma has tricked me... but that still doesn't mean I don't take it personally when people pull dirty tricks like that," Ryoga noted in a conversational tone.

The pufferfishman whirled around to face his opponent, and caught Ryoga's fist square in his gut. Breath gushed from him and he staggered back, Ryoga relentlessly pounding on the fishman before one oversized hand caught him in the chin and drove him back. By the time Ryoga had regained his footing, the fishman had done the same. The two glared balefully at each other, then roared their battlecries before charging back into the fray.

"I suddenly have a renewed appreciation for the Shadow Over Innsmouth," Kodachi mused conversationally to herself from her position behind the ship's wheel, taking in the incredible and often grotesque amalgamations of human and piscine features surrounding her, many of them far less appealing in their hybridization than her crewmate.

One particularly unappealing specimen, a halibut fishman who had a fundamentally human body, but a fish-like head with two eyes on the right of his face and blank skin on the left, came charging towards her, brandishing a cutlass. Without a flicker of emotion on her face, Kodachi whipped out a pistol with her free hand and shot off one of his fin-like ears, sending him crashing to the deck in a writhing heap as he screamed and clutched desperately at the spurting wound.

"Oh, stop being such a baby! I didn't hit you anywhere vital," Kodachi chided him, even as she blasted away at some of his friends who decided to make the same mistake.

Ukyo yelled a battle cry as she twirled her giant spatula, the silvery blade flashing deftly as she batted aside cutlasses and delivered brain-rattling blows from her faithful weapon. As bodies collapsed unconscious in her wake, she struck a badass pose she'd seen in an action movie not too long before her transportation to this world.

"Well? You jackasses feel lucky?" she asked, doing her best to sneer like the tough guy from that self-same movie.

The still conscious fishmen before her glanced uneasily at each other, then started to flee before her. Ukyo puffed out her chest in pride at this reaction, only to deflate as she heard what they were saying as they fled.

"Cat zoan! Run! Run for your lives!"

Their reaction was further justified as Shampoo bounded over Ukyo's head in hot pursuit, a bloodthirsty grin on her features that bared her inhuman fangs.

"Here, fishy-fishy-fishy!" She cried at the top of her lungs, giggling in a very unsettling way.

"...Must you always one-up me?!" Ukyo called after her in annoyance.

The crossdressing swordsman from Femille was a blur of motion as he wove through the melee, his blades flashes of silver visible primarily through the arcs of crimson left in their wake. Beneath the eerie serenity of his perpetual smile, Harumi's mind seethed like a simmering cauldron.

'Not enough... still not enough! I must prove myself to this crew - prove that I deserve to be here! I need to get faster, stronger, better!'

Danger senses honed through years of evading self-righteously furious women intent on beating him senseless sang out, and it spoke to how much training Harumi had received in that very specialized field that he nimbly dodged the heavy cleaver blow aimed at his head whilst simultaneously jabbing with Akaza, scoring a deep gash across the back of the assailant's hand.

The shriek of rage and pain sparked a warmth in a small, dark part of Harumi's soul, but the swordsman pushed it aside to concentrate on his assailant.

Standing before him, licking at the bleeding gash, was a fishman - no, fish/woman/. Easily head and shoulders taller than Harumi, she was covered in silvery gray scales, offset by thick bands of dark gray, and easily the oldest person that Harumi had ever seen. Despite her height, she hunched forward, a large, sharp-spined dorsal fin visible on her sloped back, and her slenderness was offset by drapes of skin that drooped from her face and limbs, flapping against her withered torso. Her face was a mass of wrinkles and scars, to the point the only feature that Harumi could really make out were her big, dark, hate-fueled eyes.

"You rotten bitch!" she hissed, her dorsal fin and the smaller, mohawk-like fin striping her scalp both flaring in her rage.

"If the game's too rough for you, then you shouldn't be sailing with pirates, grandma," Harumi retorted calmly.

"Grandma?!" screeched the fishwoman, mouth gaping open to reveal massive, yellow, but otherwise perfectly healthy and eerily human teeth - teeth that looked like they could crush bone. "I'm only twenty seven!"

Harumi slowly looked her up and down, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, grandmother, but that level of denial isn't healthy."

She screeched in sheer fury and hurled herself at the crossdressing swordsman, mouth gaping as if intent on biting off his face. But even as she lunged for him, Harumi was not there, weaving around and beneath her outstretched arms and hooked fingers to rake her sides with a series of slashes from his swords, sending her crashing into a bloody heap on the deck.

Harumi didn't even stop, instead flicking the gore from his blades with a practiced snap of his wrists, eyes scanning the melee for his next foe.

'I have to prove that I belong here!'

"Get the race traitor!" cried a yellowfin tuna fishman, boldly brandishing his cutlass in one direction as he looked back over his shoulder at his crewmates... A decision that proved less than wise as he turned back the way his body was facing, only to catch the blunt end of an anchor to the face, launching him into the air like he had been fired from a catapult.

"Big talk for a little man!" Miriam mockingly shouted after him, before turning her savage grin on the other fishmen, now watching her with considerably greater caution.

"How about the rest of you? C'mon, I ain't got all day!" the wotan bellowed, striding forth like a colossus with an anchor in either hand, scything them through the air and scattering the crowd, who practically trampled each other in their push to avoid being swatted or skewered.

Miriam laughed uproariously, more than a little schadenfreude bubbling up within her soul at being the big, bad, scary one for a change. She was having the time of her life swatting the slowest fishmen...

Until a sudden sharp searing pain in her left buttock brought her rampage to a halt, the wotan bellowing thunderously in shock. Instinctively, she dropped one of her anchors and reached back to grab at her injury - and got the shock of her life as she felt something wet and slimy clinging to her rear!

Driven by blind instinct, she wrapped her fingers around the strange mass as tightly as she could and pulled, only to experience resistance as the source of her pain seemed to dig in further. Refusing to be thwarted, she pulled with all her might, eliciting a bloodcurdling meaty schrrriiip noise as her skin tore away with her torment, hot sticky blood pouring down her rear and soaking the back of her leg in its clammy warmth.

But such a wound meant little to somebody with Miriam's size and thick skin, and the throbbing pain only spurred her on as she raised her clenched fist to eye level to finally identify her attacker.

She found herself face to face with the ugliest fishman she'd ever seen in her life. Tall and slender, his arms drooped down to his ankles and writhed like boneless tentacles, almost like a parody of a longarms tribesmember. But the ugliest thing about him was his face; small, black, piggy eyes glowered balefully above a jawless disk of a mouth - the nightmarish tooth-studded sucking maw of a sea lamprey, scaled up to the size of a man. Blood and saliva dripped in rivers from the pulsing proto-maw, the barbed tongue at its center visibly flicking as if yearning to rasp and rip at soft flesh once more.

"You are one ugly son of a bitch," a repulsed Miriam informed him.

"And you are a filthy half-breed," burbled the lamprey fishman, somehow managing to look even more disgusted than Miriam felt. "You should be ashamed of yourself for defiling your mother - glurk!"

A sharp squeeze from the enraged wotan's fist halted the fishman in mid tirade, seconds before Miriam leaned in and roared at the top of her lungs, baring her own fangs to their fullest extent. She snapped her jaws mere inches away from the fishman's head, then drew back and threw him back at his own ship with all her might.

"Yaaah-hoo-hoo-hoo-hooey!" wailed the fishman, before he slammed into the gaping wound in the side of the Web Panic with a mighty cacophony of splintering wood.

Eyes blazing, Miriam snatched up her abandoned anchor and charged at the nearest knot of fishmen, who promptly decided to get whilst the getting was good.

"I'm warning you! Try anything funny, and you'll regret it!" Nabiki warned the fishman who had somehow managed to corner her, clenching her fists and doing her best to emulate the fighting stances she had seen her crewmates use in the past.

Her opponent stared at her out of eyes that looked almost cataracted, with their greenish off-white spoiled milk color. Towering over her, he was slender as a rope, with a sunken stomach and clammy pink skin that clung so tight to his ribcage that she could count every ribs through the flapping-open vest he wore. His arms undulated as if they were boneless, hanging down so low that his knuckles scraped the ground, not helped by the bow-legged way he shuffled across the deck. Those disturbing eyes stared lifelessly at her, before the puckered sphincter of his mouth suddenly yawned open beneath his catfish-like barbels and...

"Hrrrooougghhhhktttsplch!"

That unholy retching sound rang out across the battlefield, and every single individual stopped and turned as one to its source, before recoiling in disgust. Even the other fishmen let out a chorus of revolted groans.

"Seriously, Harglefleck? Don't you have any pride?!" complained one fishman.

The hagfish fishman's... face, for lack of a better world, curled into a spiteful grin.

Nabiki simply stood there and stared dumbly, not really seeing anything. She just stared... and dripped. She was covered from head to toe in thick, glistening, gelatinous mucus, absolutely plastered in biological gunge. She blinked, twice. Then her eyes, the only facial features really visibly beneath the drenching of slime narrowed into slits that burned with her fury, ghostly blue fire suddenly erupting from her very skin and flash-boiling the muck into a cloud of foul-smelling steam.

"I'll kill you!" Nabiki howled, lit up like a Christmas tree with her very own battle aura before she lunged at her former assailant, who shrieked like a little girl before turning and running for his life.

"Wow. The last time I saw her remotely that mad, her dad had just tried to use her bedroom to bet against the Gambling King," Ranma observed conversationally, even as he knocked out three fishmen in a flurry of dodges and strikes.

"Shampoo never think she say this, but Shampoo impressed," the Chinese Amazon interjected from where she had just reduced a fishman to a whimpering heap on the deck, bleeding from countless scratches across his face, arms and torso.

"Filthy humans!"

Ranma sprang out of reach as a massive spiked ball of steel slammed into the deck where he had been standing, courtesy of the enraged fishman pirate captain known as Willy. The grizzled orca-man seethed, nostrils flaring as he glowered hatefully at Ranma.

"Hey, buddy, it's not my fault your crew sucks," Ranma jeered back, having already landed and assumed a fighting stance.

"You're cheating! You have to be! Humans aren't this strong!" howled Captain Willy, even as he wrenched his morningstar from the decking and lashed out at Ranma in a horizontal arc.

"In fairness, Miriam's half fishman and half giant," Ranma clarified, even as he effortlessly backflipped away from Willy's strike, leaping over a fishman who attempted to attack him from behind in the process before coming crashing down on his head with both feet in a move he would deny having stolen from Super Mario.

Willy let out an inarticulate howl of fury and continued swinging wildly at Ranma, who deliberately fell back before the onslaught. Again and again the orca fishman hammered at Ranma, but every blow fell short - in fact, many of his strikes ended up laying out other fishmen instead who made the mistake of getting too close to the melee.

"Damn your eyes, stand still!" Willy bellowed.

"Oh yeah, like that's really gonna work," Ranma jeered back, leaping over the latest wild swing and landing on the shaft of Willy's morningstar, using the increased height to deliver a pulverizing kick to the fishman's face.

Willy's nose broke with an audible crunch of gristle, and the fishman bellowed like a stuck pig, staggering back and clutching instinctively at his bleeding face. Then he shook his head, shedding droplets of gore across the deck before he hurled himself forward in a mighty charge. The deck audibly shook beneath the furious bulk of Willy as he hurtled towards Ranma... who nonchalantly sprang out of the way, letting his opponent slam headfirst into the door leading to the ship's interior, crashing through it and slamming headfirst into the floor beyond as he tripped.

"Give it a break! Don't matter how strong you are if you can't hit me," Ranma jeered.

Willy shook the stars from his eyes, snarling in fury. He was about to lunge to his feet and round on his slippery little opponent when he realized he was practically face to face with a terrified-looking young boy. An evil grin split his face, made all the more horrific by his visibly broken fangs and the blood smeared all around his nose, before he reached out and grabbed the youth by the neck with one massive hand. Ignoring the squawls of protest, he surged upright and spun around, his free hand snatching a battered pistol from his belt and placing it to the boy's temple.

"Don't make a move, human scum! One twitch, and I'll blow the boy's brains out!" he roared, cocking the pistol with his thumb for emphasis.

"You wouldn't!" Ranma hissed in shock; that kind of thing would have been beyond the pale back in Nerima, even in the worst of his brawls. He couldn't remember the last time that one of his opponents had threatened somebody who had nothing to do with the battle!

...Well, alright, there was the time Pantyhose Taro had shown up and not only kidnapped Akane, but tried to crush her with a boulder for attempting to help Ranma in the fight.

...And Mousse was pretty careless when he was throwing around those daggers. Or those balloons full of a Yahzuniichuan water.

Then there was Ryoga, who hadn't stopped attacking Ranma even when he was trying to get Akane out of the line of fire...

Pushing the manic thoughts aside with a furious effort of will, Ranma stared hatefully at his counterpart, slowly spreading his arms in a gesture of surrender. "Alright, alright, just don't hurt the kid..."

Willy actually looked surprised at Ranma's reaction for a moment, before he burst out into a cruel, guttural laugh. "What a joke! You actually care if this useless piece of garbage gets hurt?! And you call yourself a pirate?"

"Just because I'm a pirate doesn't mean I'm a heartless monster!" Ranma spat in disgust.

"Pfah! Stupid human... now, hold still and let me get a clean shot on you, or I'll break the kid's neck..." Willy declared, slowly taking aim at Ranma.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the melee around them fell silent, both crews staring transfixed at this confrontation between their respective captains...

"Damn you, Ranma! You can't let it end like this!" Ryoga roared furiously from where he had his pufferfish nemesis in a headlock, punctuating each proclamation with another punch to the fishman's face, the piscine pirate grunting in pain but stubbornly refusing to lose consciousness out of sheer spite.

"This is no time for gallantry, beloved!" Kodachi wailed from her position at the helm, trying to find an angle that would let her shoot the fishman captain first.

"Airen! Stupid fish, let Shampoo go!" the zoan yowled, thrashing and clawing as she attempted to shred her way through the seaweed net she had been lured into.

Unfortunately, the panic-stricken fishmen around her kept throwing fresh nets onto her as fast as she cut through them, keeping her well and truly bound.

Miriam roared throatily, but she was in no better condition than Shampoo. Lariats woven from durable seaweed draped from her wrists in mockery of mooring lines, over a dozen fishmen straining to hold the wotan immobile even as she fought to free herself. More lariats began to drop around her vulnerable neck, drawing the struggling half-breed closer and closer to the deck.

"Come on, Ranma, you never lose!" Nabiki cried at the top of her lungs from where she was busily tying Hargleflecks boneless arms into a knot around his neck.

"Yeah, you've gotta fight!" Ukyo bellowed, bludgeoning away at a multi-armed cuttlefish chef in a filthy apron.

"Captain!" Harumi wailed, even as he stepped away from the bleeding semi-conscious wreckage of his last opponent.

'No... no, it can't end like this! There's only one choice... Mother of Blades, guide my hand!'

With that desperate prayer ringing in his mind, adrenaline burning through his veins like white-hot fire, Harumi fell back on pure instinct. Slamming his wakizashi into its sheath and gripping his katana with both hands for extra strength, he drew back and slashed as hard and as fast as he could, putting his whole body into the spin to push the blade as fast through the air as he possibly could.

Miraculously, the aspiring swordsman's desperation paid off. A faint high-pitched squeal could be heard as his blade scythed around, its edges glowing with the faintest glimmer of blue light. In its wake, a ripple sped through the air, twisting and curving like a snake but never ultimately wavering from its goal; the distorted air slammed into Willy's wrist joint, the vibrating blade of of wind carving through skin, muscle, gristle and bone, Blood spurted furiously as the fishman's hand fell to the deck, still clutching the pistol before the impact knocked it loose and sent it clattering across the floor.

Willy's agonized howl made the sails shake as he flung his captive aside in an instinctive need to wrap his remaining hand around his gushing stump.

"My hand!" The orca fishman wailed, tears of pain springing unbidden to his eyes. He blinked and looked up, only to see Ranma had crossed the distance between them in an instant, a grim expression on his face.

"Anything-Goes Final Attack...Ten Thousand Fist Strike!"

Even as Ranma's defiant battle cry echoed over the waves, Ranma blurred into motion. Every single speed training regime that he had undergone - the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken, his wasp-swatting training to defeat Ryoga's Bakusai Tenketsu, the Parlay du Foie Gras, even his efforts to learn how to run on water when Natsume and Kurumi had burst into the Tendo Dojo - all of them were brought together into an explosion of pure speed. Faster than the human eye could follow, Ranma rained down blows on his opponent; without hesitation, without mercy. Throat and groin, armpit and solar plexus, blow upon blow upon blow hammered into every vulnerable spot the human body had, hundreds upon hundreds of times. The sound of Ranma's fists impacting on Willy's flesh rolled like thunder, a staccato sound like the firing of a machine gun as he struck the fishman captain over and over again. Maimed and caught off-guard, Willy was utterly defenseless before the onslaught, simply wavering back and forth as Ranma brutalized him from all angles.

And then, as suddenly as the onslaught had begun, it stopped. Willy swayed drunkenly back and forth, before Ranma caught him right under the chin with a picture perfect uppercut. The blow struck home with such ferocity that the shockwave of it rippled out from the two combatants, snapping Willy's head back so hard that the hulking fishman was actually launched clean off of his feet and sailed through the air to crash squarely on the deck of his ship.

That blow was the last straw for the maimed Web Panic. With a screaming of splintering timbers, the leaning upper decks gave way and crashed onto the lower hold thanks to half the supporting bulkheads having been destroyed by Ranma and Ryoga's ki blast opening strikes. The sudden cascade of wreckage shattered the remaining lower bulkeads, until the Web Panic's own weight ripped its guts out from within, causing the ship to start sinking with drastic speed.

It was a sight to dismay any pirate, and Willy's fishmen had finally had enough. First in ones and twos they began to flee the Kamikaze Pirates, and then it was a full on rout, screaming man-fish sprinting for the gunwale and hurling themselves over it into the sea, using their amphibious nature to flee where their human counterparts couldn't hope to follow.

And then the Stormbringer's deck was empty of all life save for those who sailed upon her. Naturally, the rest of the Kamikaze Pirates wasted no time in swarming over to their erstwhile captain.

"Airen!" Shampoo cried, throwing her arms around Ranma's neck and almost sobbing with relief.

"Oh, thank goodness you're alright, Ranchan!" Ukyo added, also embracing Ranma from the other side.

"That was the bravest, noblest, stupidest thing I've ever seen!" Kodachi proclaimed, abandoning her post to rush over and join in on the group hug.

"That's our Ranma; always has to showboat," Nabiki quipped with her usual dry humor, standing to the side and watching as the other girls did their best to smother him with affection.

"You've been holding out on me, Ranma - you never used that move in our last spar!" Ryoga complained, but even he had the faintest smirk on his lips, pleased to see how his archrival continued to prove himself worthy of the title.

Sadly, Ranma was only half-listening to them, lungs heaving like bellows as he sucked wind in an effort to recover from the massive physical effort he'd just undertaken. His whole body trembled with the after-effects of forcing himself to move so fast whilst also still exerting his full strength, and he blearily shook his head in an effort to recenter his thoughts, smiling wearily at his newest crewmate.

"Nice move, Harumi! I didn't know you knew that technique..."

Looking almost as spent as Ranma did, Harumi just shuffled his feet meekly. "...I don't, not really. I mean, I know the theory behind it, but I've never actually used it before..."

"Lucky for Ranma that you learn well under pressure," Miriam guffawed, swatting at her crewmate's shoulder in what was meant to be a friendly gesture, but instead slapped him to the floor, instantly wiping the amused grin from her face. "Oh, crap, I'm sorry!"

"It's alright, Lady Miriam; no harm done," Harumi assured her, clambering back to his feet.

"Well, I think that your technique was wonderful for a first execution - even my brother would say so!" Kodachi interjected.

"And you're not the least little bit biased because he saved your boytoy with it, hmm?" Nabiki quipped.

"...Why?"

That thin, hesitant query cut through the mood like a knife. As one, the Kamikaze Pirates turned to stare at the small boy in his filthy clothes. He flinched slightly, but stiffened his spine, looked Ranma in the eye and asked, "Why did you save me?"

"What was I supposed to do, let him kill you?" An incredulous Ranma unthinkingly shot back.

"No pirate captain would have done what you did!" The boy insisted desperately.

"Well, we ain't yer ordinary pirates! ...Besides, he probably wouldn't have killed me even if he had gotten that shot off," Ranma added, unable to resist it.

"But it makes no sense!" the boy protested.

"Look, kid; we got a code. An' part of that code is that we don't bully the weak. We'll fight the marines any day, because that's punching up, an' they started it first. And if any pirate, mercenary, bandit, bounty hunter, whatever, wants to start a fight with us, we'll give them one. But we're not here to hurt the innocent. We like to help out, when we can. You needed help... so I had to help," Ranma finally concluded, shrugging his shoulders.

The boy just looked at them silently, his thoughts visibly whirling. Then, slowly, he asked, in a tone that suggested he was struggling to hope, "I...Would... would you help my grandfather?"

"Your grandfather?" Ranma asked, voicing the thought on his crew's collective minds.

"He... He's not my real grandfather, but he's been taking care of me for years. I... My name's Anaguma, and he's Biera. We're prisoners of Captain Gasparde," the boy began.

"Why would he keep a little boy and an old man prisoner? No offense, kid, but you don't look rich," Ryoga interjected.

"We're not. But Biera was one of the engineers who designed the Salamander - Gasparde's ship. That makes him one of the only people in the world who can keep her experimental steam engine running. That's why Gasparde kidnapped him when he stole the ship. Me? I was just extra baggage that got brought along," Anaguma explained quietly.

"Is that why you came after our bounties?" Harumi asked, softly.

"Yeah. Granpa Biera's sick, and Gasparde won't give him any medicine. But he told me that if I could bring him the bounty of any pirate on Hannabal Island, he'd make me a full-fledged member of his crew, and give Grandpa Biera the medicine he needs," Anaguma elaborated, looking sadly down at the deck, unable to meet their eyes.

"Wait, I thought you just said that your grandfather is the only person who can keep the steam engine running - why wouldn't he take care of a man as irreplaceable as that?!" a dumbfounded Nabiki interjected.

"Because he's a cruel, selfish, bastard!" Anaguma spat, clenching his fist as unshed tears gathered in his eyes.

The scruffy young boy blinked as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching, looking up to see Ranma looking down on him, a cocky smile on his face. The young pirate captain made a show of looking over at his crew.

"Well, we need to beat this Gasparde jerk to win the race anyway... all those in favor of us kicking his butt and rescuing Anaguma's father in the process?"

Without hesitation, every single Kamikaze Pirate, even Ryoga and Nabiki, raised their arms aloft and shouted, "Aye!"

"The Ayes have it!" Ranma chuckled, before glancing back out over the now-empty waters around them. "Sheesh, they sure didn't waste time - you'd have thought we'd all be stuck together..."

"Not necessarily, captain. With the Eternal Pose to guide them, each ship is free to forge its own route there, so naturally the ships would split up to follow what they feel is the best way to get there faster," Kodachi commented as the crew's de facto navigator and helmsman.

"Yeah? Well, we'll just have to do what we can by going straight - Shampoo! Grab a drink if you need it, then man the engine!"

"Shampoo do!" The Chinese Amazon chirped, snapping a salute before bounding off towards the ship's interior.

"The rest of you, let's get back to your stations - we're still in this race!"

"Yes, captain!" chorused the Kamikaze Pirates, before falling out to do just that.

That evening...

Shampoo walked slowly into the Stormbringer's galley, gasping softly from exertion and mopping the sweat from her brow with the back of one hand. "Shampoo no can run no more, airen."

Ranma glanced up from where he was sitting at the dining table and smiled warmly at his Chinese crewmate.

"Great job, Shampoo! That should have more than made up for any time we lost fighting those losers earlier... sit down, take a load off - Ucchan'll have dinner ready soon."

The tired zoan sat down with a sigh of relief, slumping bonelessly against the table. Harumi silently pushed over a pitcher of homemade limeade, something that the crew had adopted as an informal scurvy preventative long ago. Shampoo nodded her thanks to him even as she grabbed the pitcher; rather than pour a glass, she instead simply lifted it to her lips and chugged the sweetened citrus juice in a series of deep, rapid swallows. Once she had drained the whole pitcher, she sighed hugely, belched in satisfaction, and wiped her mouth on the back of her arm before putting it down.

'Great-grandmother would spank my bottom until it was tomato red for that uncouth behavior, but I am too exhausted to care...'

She glanced around the table, stopping only when her eyes fell on Nabiki, who was slowly reading through a large book.

"What Nabiki doing?" Shampoo asked, curiosity piqued despite how tired she was.

"I'm reading the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, like I've been meaning to do since we got it," the ship's eldest Neriman resident explained, not even looking up from the book as she read.

"Huh. You find anything interesting?" Shampoo asked, only more intrigued now as the ship's resident Devil Fruit user.

"Why're you so interested, anyway?" Ranma interjected, looking up from where he was balancing a salt shaker on the tip of his finger.

Nabiki bit her lip, running over her responses in her head, but finally confessed, "I'm... considering getting a Devil Fruit of my own."

At that, everybody looked her way, with the exception of Kodachi, to whom this news was nothing new. Unflinchingly, Nabiki stared back at them, silently daring them to make the first move.

"You know that mastering what a Devil Fruit can do will likely involve training, too, right?" Ranma asked, an unusually serious expression on her face.

Nabiki sighed softly, nodding her head absently as she replied, "Yes, I'm aware... but even so, I need some kind of power boost! I know I can't rely on it entirely, but the right fruit could save my life; these are some serious force multipliers, and let's be honest, if there's anyone on this ship who needs one, it's me."

"Why just one?"

The group collectively blinked in surprise before turning to Ryoga, who simply tilted his head at their expressions.

"What? It's kinda obvious! If one Devil Fruit gives you powers, why not eat more than one and combine them?"

"Huh... he's gotta point," Ranma conceded.

"I think I actually saw something on that at the start of the book," Nabiki murmured, flipping through the pages. Then her expression grew sour with disdain. "Oh, of course it couldn't be that simple..."

"Huh? What's wrong, Nabs?" Ranma asked, craning his neck in an effort to peek at the pages.

"According to this book, a person can only ever have the power of one Devil Fruit at a time! Apparently, anyone who has ever tried to eat another Devil Fruit has died on the spot!"

Silence fell across the table at that revelation, with Miriam, Harumi and Anagumi being surprised more at the visible shock on their counterparts' faces than at this information. That silence was broken from the furthest corner of the table, as Umok lit a cigar.

"Yes, that makes sense," he observed matter-of-factly, before inhaling on his stogie and blowing a smoke ring.

"How?!" Shampoo demanded, a tinge of personal fear fueling the indignation in her voice.

"Mixing magic can always be a little tricky, but high level transmutation effects like this are particularly prone to destabilizing. In all honesty, I'm surprised your Jusenkyo curse reacted as smoothly to it as it did," the imp explained, before sucking on his cigar once again.

Shampoo just looked poleaxed, to the point that Ranma actually reached over and gently patted her on the shoulder in a clumsy effort to comfort her.

Nabiki, meanwhile, pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaled deeply, and then sighed loudly. "Well, that obviously means that choosing a Devil Fruit requires even more thought than I anticipated..."

"You're really going to do it?" Ranma asked, glancing over at her.

"I don't see that I have much choice. I don't have your talent for learning, Ranma; I can't catch up to you on my own!" Nabiki declared.

"Sounds to me like you're just taking the easy way out," Ryoga muttered.

"Oh, you are the last one to make a comment like that, Mister Steroids," Nabiki jeered at the Eternally Lost Boy.

"You offered them to me!" Ryoga protested.

"But you still took them of your own accord," Nabiki shot right back.

"Have you actually found any Devil Fruits you like?" Ranma interjected, eager to cut this off before it could really get started.

Nabiki flashed him a quick smirk, which Ranma had privately come to dub her, 'I know what you're doing and you can't trick me,' smirk. But, unlike the past times she'd given him that expression, this time she played along with his plans.

"A few. To be honest, it's hard to choose the best ones; I have to consider the fruit's powers and what I'm looking for," Nabiki sighed with only slightly exaggerated frustration at her search.

"And what are you looking for?" Harumi asked politely.

"In short? Something that will pay immediate dividends. The whole reason I'm considering sacrificing my ability to swim is to catch up in the combat department, so there's not a lot of point in eating a Devil Fruit with a steep learning curve," Nabiki patiently explained.

"Yeah, even if Devil Fruits operate on something close to Stand logic, that makes sense; if you have to take just as long to get your abilities up to snuff, then you might as well have just stuck to martial arts," Ukyo interjected.

Miriam, Harumi and Anagumi all stared at the Kamikaze's chef with naked curiosity, and even Nabiki privately was wondering the very question that their wotan finally asked; "What's Stand logic?"

Ukyo simply grinned broadly. "Let me tell you about an awesome manga from our homeland called Jojo's Bizarre Adventure...sucks that being out on the seas means I'm missing out on Vento Aureo, it was just starting to get good..."

As Ukyo launched into a story of mask-born vampires, magical fighting ghosts and a family cursed to battle evil throughout the generations to her enraptured audience, Nabiki largely tuned them out, and instead turned her attention back to Ranma.

"Well, my first choice would probably be a Logia. Turning into and creating an element is just such an obviously powerful ability, you'd have to be a real idiot to not be able to use it effectively. I mean, even if all I can find is the Swamp-Swamp Fruit or the Snow-Snow Fruit, that's still going to make my defense levels sky-rocket - I'll be virtually indestructible!"

"Huh... yeah, that makes total sense, Nabiki. Can't really hurt snow or... I'm guessing mud?" Ranma asked, brows furrowed.

"Yes, why they called the mud logia the Swamp-Swamp Fruit escapes me too," Nabiki admitted, shifting the encyclopedia around so they could see the fruit in question - a picture of something that looked like a bilious green cranberry covered in black spirals.

"The only problem is that their power means most Logias will either be very highly prized treasures or else in the hands of strong users already. The book claims that the Magma and Ice Logias are already in the hands of Navy Admirals, and I'm not that desperate to get my hands on one!" Nabiki continued.

"Yeah, I'll say," Ranma added, shuddering as he pictured how strong such individuals were likely to be if Baron Sukumvit was only ranked as a mere Commodore.

"After a Logia, my next pick would be a Paramecia with a strong power that could bolster my offense or defense. The Barrier-Barrier Fruit, the Heal-Heal Fruit, the teleportation powers of the Warp-Warp Fruit, the invisibility of the Clear-Clear Fruit; that's the sort of thing I'd want... although turning into a diamond with the Twinkle-Twinkle Fruit or being able to mold gold with the Gold-Gold Fruit would be pretty sweet, too," she confessed, smiling absently as she pictured that outcome.

"Color us surprised," Kodachi dryly observed.

"Outside of outliers like that, though, I think Paramecias are probably the ones I like least, simply because there's too wide a range. On the one hand, you have strong fruits like the ones I just talked about. On the other hand, you have more gimmicky fruits that clearly rely on training and cunning to be useful - the ability to bend things with the Curve-Curve Fruit, turn your surroundings into rubber with the Bounce-Bounce Fruit, or change your body into kitchen appliances with the Kitchen-Kitchen Fruit, for example."

"That last one sound like it almost good for Ukyo," Shampoo commented.

"Oh, she could probably find a lot of uses for it, but it definitely wouldn't be my first pick," Nabiki conceded.

"And then there's Shampoo's type of fruits, the Zoans. Not as flashy as the Paramecias or as strong as the Logias, but at least the results are consistent and reliable. No offense, but look at how strong Shampoo got just from eating the Rabbit-Rabbit Fruit - with a Zoan under my belt, I might actually catch up with you guys enough that I can at least hope to keep up with the training," Nabiki continued.

Her words caused the rest of the Kamikazes to nod sagely, before Kodachi commented, "Of course, the precise type of Zoan fruit would have its own pros and cons, yes?"

"Yeah. I mean, even if it was a Mythic Zoan, it'd just be stupid to eat one of the Cat-Cat Fruits," Nabiki agreed, Ranma blanching at the mere thought.

"...Huh. Is there Mythic Cat-Cat Fruits?" Shampoo wondered curiously.

"Well, I'd presume so. Bakeneko and Nekomata are things, after all," Nabiki replied.

"Then there's foreign mythologies, such as the Sphinx, the Nemean Lion, or the Serpopard," Kodachi interjected.

"Can we talk about something else?" Ranma pleaded.

"Of course, darling. So, would a Mythic Zoan be your second choice after a Logia?" Kodachi asked Nabiki.

"I... think so, yes. There's not a lot of details on them, and they run into similar problems as the Logias in that finding them would be a bitch, but they have to be the closest to Logias in terms of raw power. If I couldn't get a Logia, then a Mythic Zoan wouldn't be a bad compensation," Nabiki replied, shrugging her shoulders.

"Honestly, the right Mythic Zoan would probably appeal to me even more than a Logia. Just imagine getting your hands on the Unicorn Zoan!" Kodachi giggled, sighing as she stared off into space with a dreamy smile at some vision only she could see.

Ranma blinked, giving her a confused look, before turning to Nabiki and Shampoo, who simply returned his puzzled expression and shrugged their shoulders.

The sound of plates and cutlery hitting the table signaled the end of their conversation, and Nabiki closed the book before putting it aside, joining her crewmates in anticipation of their meal.

Anaguma had been given a place at the table as well, and was looking wide-eyed at Ukyo as she piled food onto his plate. "I can't eat all this!"

"Oh, hush up, sugar; you're skin and bones, you need food!" The Osaksan chef gently chided him, doling up one last serve onto his plate.

"Gotta admit, it feels kinda weird to be having a meal whilst we're still technically in the middle of a race," Ranma noted, even as he took his first bite from his place.

"That's just the way a sailing race works. I do wonder what happened to the other ships out there..." Kodachi noted.

Meanwhile...

"Vile lecher! You shall not defile my maids!" Screamed the hysterical she-fiend, skin pale white as marble and contrasting the jet black talons bulging from her fingers and the streams of bloody tears pouring down her face as she clawed at the leader of the Fallen Monk Pirates.

"Madam, please! I admit to being a fallen monk who enjoys the pleasures of the flesh, but I have standards!" Urouge protested, his usual grin growing distinctly brittle at the accusation.

And also...

"Surf's up, groms and gromettes! Cowabunga!" Captain Bronson of the White Foam Pirates cried jubilantly as a dark, foaming wave reared overhead, taller than the tallest mast.

"You people are insane!" cried the crew of the ship sailing next to them, even as the wave came crashing down towards them...

And...

The stench of gunpowder hung thick in the air as two ships sank slowly beneath the waves, their respective crews clinging to lifeboats and whatever flotsam was available to preserve themselves. Their respective captains stood on the upside-down hull of an overturned lifeboat, their swords clashing and clattering as each cursed the other for ruining everything.

Back on the Stormbringer...

"Eh, who knows? We'll probably never find out," Ranma declared, casually shrugging his shoulders as he did.

"All we can do now is follow the Eternal Pose and keep our strength up. I'm positive we'll face Gasparde at the finish line, and we'll have to be at our best to take him down," the captain of the Kamikaze Pirates added, before taking another bite of his dinner.

"Speaking of Gasparde... Anaguma, can you tell us anything about him? Anything we need to know before fighting him?" Nabiki asked, looking over at the now-less grubby child sharing their dinner table.

"Uh... not much. He's got a lot of goons, but not many of them were with him in the Marines. I've heard he's really strong, but I've never actually seen him dirty his hands... also, I've heard he's a Devil Fruit user, but I don't know what kind of power he has. I'm sorry..."

Anaguma hung his head, and Ukyo absently reached out to pet his head.

"Hey, it's okay, sugar; we've taken down worse odds, trust me."

"Is true! Shampoo bet on Ranma over any Devil Fruit user anyday," the ship's resident zoan proudly declared.

"Yeah, but you're biased," Ryoga grunted darkly from his position at the edge of the table.

"Is maybe so, but still true," the cabbit Zoan defensively retorted.

And so the Kamikaze Pirates fell into their usual routine of mostly good-natured bickering, joking and eating, gorging themselves on the bounty that Ukyo had dished up to restore themselves after the trials of the day and build up their strength for the next.

Late the next day...

The skies were dark as the Stormbringer surged over the choppy waves, thunder rumbling intermittently amidst clouds black as a pirate's heart and pregnant with unborn storms. Tension had settled over the Kamikaze Pirates like a shroud over a dying man, and the nervous energy practically crackled off of them as they busied themselves at their chores, eyes fixed over the bow wherever they were.

"Partia Island dead ahead - and Gasparde's ship is the only one here as well!" Umok called down from his private den atop the crow's nest.

"Only him?" Ranma wondered, idly rubbing his chin.

"Maybe the others got lost?" Ryoga suggested, cracking his knuckles and neck in anticipation of a brawl.

"That, or they simply couldn't keep up with our Shampoo-powered engine," Ukyo replied, likewise limbering up.

"Maybe... you think we'll catch him?" Ryoga asked, lifting an eyebrow as he glanced over at Ranma.

"I trust Shampoo," Ranma replied.

"The Salamander just veered off course! They're turning away from Partia Island!" Umok cried suddenly from above, a thunderclap punctuating his words.

"What?!"

Ranma sprang to the bow of the ship, followed by Ryoga and Ukyo, leaning over the gunwale to get a better look.

"Yeah, he's right - damn, it looks like they've been through the wringer, too, one of their masts is gone! Shampoo, speed it up, we'll catch them yet!"

Down in the engine room, Shampoo paused to crack her neck, spitting in her hands and rubbing them together before taking on her hybrid zoan form. Grabbing the spoke of the turnwheel with both hands... or paws, as you prefer... she exploded into motion, racing around and around so fast that she became a veritable blur, a faint afterimage trailing behind her as the gears shrieked in chorus.

It truly spoke to the craftsmanship of Miriam and her fellow shipwrights that, despite never having built a ship like the Stormbringer before, there wasn't even the slightest protest from its support structure as it accelerated at a speed unthinkable to mere wind-propelled vessels. As the Kamikazes sped towards the floundering Salamander, Ranma bared his teeth in a feral grin of anticipation, feeling his heart pounding with excitement.

'Let's give this asshole a proper greeting!'

Even as he thought that, he reached deep down inside of himself, feeling for where the flames of confidence burned brightest and allowing that energy to surge up through him...

Meanwhile, aboard the Salamander...

Gasparde sneered disdainfully down at the broken body of Shuraiya Bascùd, pinned by the renegade Marine's boot on his head. "What? That's all? I thought I'd have more fun than this. You're not fit to be a chewtoy."

He ground Shuraiya's face into the deck for emphasis before kicking him, sending him rolling forward until he was looking up at the pirate's towering form through blood-obscured eyes.

"You bore me!" Gasparde spat in disgust, before raising his foot into the air, preparing to bring it down in a pulverizing blow...

Only for a sudden massive impact to shake the entire Salamander, pitching Gasparde off-balance and causing his stomp to instead land too far ahead, punching a neatly foot-shaped crater into the hardwood by his victim's head. Slowly he raised his head and glared across the rough waves towards the source of the interruption; a clipper that was racing towards the now-drifting Salamander at uncanny speeds.

"You're a Devil Fruit user too?!" Anaguma blurted in shock, staring at the smoking wreckage that had once been the starboard paddlewheel of the Salamander.

"Nope. I'm just that badass," Ranma announced, a cocky grin plastered on his face and wisps of smoke emanating from his palms.

"Yeah, an' a real pillar of modesty, too," Ryoga jeered.

Ignoring him, Ranma glanced from the rapidly approaching enemy ship, taking in the wrecked paddlewheel and missing mast, and then back to his assembled crew. "Alright, I'll take on Gasparde. Ryoga, Miriam, Harumi, you take Anaguma and find his gramps. Kodachi, you keep the wheel steady and get ready for us to leave - Shampoo, you rest up here, because we may need another jumpstart from you to get away! Nabiki, you stay here, and Ucchan, you keep guard, understood?"

A chorus of affirmations rang out in response to Ranma's words, and he turned his attention back to the Salamander. Moments later, Kodachi spun the wheel to bring the Stormbringer alongside, freeing Ranma and his chosen boarding party to go leaping onto the crippled vessel. Tuning out the shouts of surprise that quickly gave way to the cacophony of battle behind him as his chosen trio went to battle with the Salamander's crew, Ranma hopped across the deck in great frog-like leaps, until he was standing before Captain Gasparde, taking in his first look at his enemy.

To give him credit, the fallen Marine officer was an imposing sight. He was easily heads and shoulders taller than Ranma, and built like a brick outhouse, with a barrel-shaped chest he left bare under an elaborate Marine officer's jacket and an open-fronted brown shirt paired with black pants, brown gloves, armored boots and a purple scarf. His face was as fearsome as his build, with strong cheekbones, a heavy chin, and squinting eyes beneath neatly combed locks of dark-blonde hair. Those small eyes stared unflinchingly at Ranma, who felt a chill run down his spine at the madness he could see burning in their cold depths.

"Well, well, well... I didn't expect a nameless scrub to catch up to me. And you even boarded my ship... to what do I owe the pleasure?" Gasparde asked, as casually as if he and Ranma were chatting in the marketplace, even as the sounds of splintering wood and massive blows intermingled with cries of defiance, fear and pain from behind them both.

"Well, I was just going to beat you to Partia Island and claim the prize for the Dead End Race, but... then I found out about you kidnapping Anaguma and his gramps. So, I'm here to save the old man, and if that means I gotta beat you senseless first, that's fine and dandy with me," Ranma replied chipperly, trying to match Gasparde's attitude as best he could.

"Oh? You mean you want to end up like him?" Gasparde asked, in the same conversational tone of voice, even as he roughly nudged the barely conscious man at his feet with his foot.

Ranma instinctively followed Gasparde's body language, and grimaced in distaste.

"This is what happens to those who come after me," Gasparde warned the young pirate captain. "Although I'll admit he did put on a good show."

"Beating up weaklings is fun to you, is it?" Ranma asked, unable to help himself.

"If I didn't entertain myself, this boring shit of an ocean would be unbearable," the fallen Marine flippantly declared. "To tell the truth, I was planning to start the Dead End Race myself - I was going to give all the pirates disguised Eternal Poses to the Marine Base of G-8 Navarone, so they'd be sunk by its guns, but that idiot Captain Moonscar beat me to it. But I decided to play along, just in case there might be an opportunity to have some fun... but all I got was this pathetic weakling."

He emphasized his point by kicking Shuraiya in the head, sending him rolling bonelessly over the deck before flopping into an unconscious heap at Ranma's feet.

Ranma looked down at the heavily beaten man, looked back up at Gasparde, then took a deep breath. "Y'know... you may just be the worst person I've ever met. And I'm including Happosai in that list."

Gasparde actually laughed at that, grinning toothily in a way that made him look even more unhinged. "Morals? From a pirate? Now that's funny! You of all people should understand that the only thing that matters on this sea is power. Power is all you need. And if you don't have it, you deserve whatever happens to you."

Ryoga grabbed the last pirate to make the mistake of trying to attack him by the face and contemptuously threw him aside so hard that when he hit the wall, he smashed partially through the wood and was left hanging limply from the crater.

"Where's your grandfather?" He asked Anaguma, even as behind him Miriam and Harumi took down the last stragglers.

"Over there! Grandpa!" Anaguma cried, sprinting across the deck to the limp form of a shaven-headed old man in dirty, well-worn workman's clothes.

As Anaguma approached, the old man stirred and sat up on his knees, his eyes rapidly focusing on Anaguma as the tearful youth rushed into his embrace.

"Grandpa!" Anaguma cried, hugging the old man tight.

"I'm so glad... I'm so glad you're safe, you little idiot," sobbed the older man, returning the embrace with equal fierceness.

The two clutched each other for a minute before Anaguma suddenly shook his head. "Ah, that's right, I came here to rescue you! Grandpa, follow me - these pirates are here to help us! They're strong, and they're not like Gasparde's scum - it's just like you always said! We waited for something good to happen to us, and now it has! We can get away, we can live together!"

As the excited youth rambled on, the old man looked from Anaguma over to where Ranma was standing before Gasparde, focusing on the unconscious form of Shuraiya between them. He silently stared for a moment, then turned to Ryoga.

"Young man... I have a little favor to ask, if you don't mind helping this poor old man."

"What is it, mister? I'll help you however I can," Ryoga assured him.

"Will you take Anaguma back to your ship? I've left something in the boiler room, but I'll follow along once I've gotten it," the elderly engineer explained.

"Got it," Ryoga replied.

"Grandpa?" Anaguma asked, staring at his adoptive parental figure in confusion, even as Biera stood up and placed a comforting hand on his head.

"I'll be right behind you," he assured him, before walking through a shattered doorway and descending down some steps.

"Hurry back!" Anaguma called after him, before Ryoga put his hands on the boy's shoulder and began leading him back to the Stormbringer.

"Ranma! We're done here!" Ryoga's voice suddenly echoed from behind the captain of the Kamikaze Pirates, who glanced back in his direction.

"Okay!" Ranma called back.

"What? Leaving already? I thought you said you were looking for a fight? So why not play a while?" Gasparde jeered.

"Well, if you're that eager to get your clock cleaned..." Ranma announced, rolling his head from side to side until his spine audibly clicked. His hands curled into open-fingered fists, fingers curling into makeshift claws and tensing until the joints popped like breaking walnuts even as he shifted into a combat stance.

Suddenly, Shuraiya stirred, reaching up and defiantly clasping at Ranma's trousers.

"He... He's mine..." he gasped, blood dribbling over his bottom lip, his defiance made desperate by how badly beaten he visibly was.

Ranma simply ran a cool gaze over the battered stranger, his expression carefully blank.

"But first things first... Miriam, catch!"

In one explosive motion, Ranma reached down and grabbed the barely conscious Shuraiya by his shirt, before heaving him off of the ground and into the air over his shoulder, where his wotan crewmate deftly snatched the plummeting body from midair.

"H-Hey! Put me down!" Shuraiya ordered, kicking his legs and pounding weakly on the wotan's wrist in a futile effort to force her to drop him.

"No can do, buddy... kick his ass, captain!" Miriam cried, before she scaled over the side of the Salamander and dropped down to the Stormbringer below, Shuraiya protesting all the way.

"Still worrying over that weakling?" Gasparde observed, making no move to threaten Ranma as he did.

"I just don't need him getting in the way," Ranma shot back.

Gasparde laughed, by now hunching over in anticipation of lunging into the fray. "Yeah, he was in the way. You've got a smartass mouth, but I like you... try not to die too quickly, alright?"

"I'll do my best not to disappoint!" Ranma spat, before weaving out of the way as Gasparde surged forward in a straight right that struck the deck hard enough to punch clean through the floor, following it up with a left cross that Ranma wove around.

Ranma's own right blurred upwards in a powerful uppercut straight to the older captain's ribs as he was overextended... only to encounter not the solid resistance of flesh and bone, but instead an alien texture. An obscene slurping noise echoed in Ranma's ears, and Ranma's eyes went wide as he stared at the impossible sight, barely aware of the feral grin that Gasparde was bearing above him.

Where Ranma's fist had connected, Gasparde's flesh had become a semi-translucent green color, rippling around where Ranma's arm had buried itself halfway to the elbow inside of Gasparde's body without any apparent harm to Gasparde himself. A wet slimy texture washed over the buried limb, making Ranma's skin crawl in revulsion.

"Gah, what the hell is this?! Feels like glue!" Ranma yelped in surprise.

Gasparde chuckled darkly. "Didn't Anaguma tell you I was a Devil Fruit user, boy? I ate the Candy-Candy Fruit, a Logia that gives me the power of candy syrup! Oh, it earned me the wrath of Big Mom, but it made me invincible, so it was worth it!"

He straightened up, and Ranma found himself dragged involuntarily along, for no matter how he tugged, he couldn't extract his arm from the gummy depths of Gasparde's body.

"Big Mom? The Pirate Empress? What's she care about you?" Ranma blurted out; he didn't really care, but his mind was racing for a way to literally and figuratively extricate himself from this situation.

"She thinks she has a claim over all food and cooking-based Devil Fruits, gluttonous old hag! Well, tough, she's over the Red Line, and I'm here, so this is one Logia she won't get her greedy hands on!"

That was all the warning Ranma had before Gasparde's right fist came around like the wrath of an angry god and caught him right across the cheek. Despite the force surging through Ranma's body, he remained tethered to the Logia's body, which Gasparde took full advantage of to rain a brutal combo of punches on his helpless victim.

"How's that? You like to dance?" Gasparde guffawed as he bludgeoned away at Ranma, blood spraying across his knuckles.

'Fuck, he's got me! Gotta think of something, quick!'

Pushing the pain down into a corner of his mind, Ranma coaxed the embers of his confidence to life, channeling the spiritual energy down his trapped limb and violently out through his hand in a barely focused Moko Takabisha.

The results were more drastic than Ranma could have anticipated; the malformed ki blast blew a hole clean through Gasparde's body like a cannonball, a veritable tidal wave of snot-green sugary syrup erupting from the ragged wound that it tore through the Logia's back and the jacket draped over it. Gasparde bellowed like a bull who'd just discovered the hard way what the two bricks were for, whilst Ranma sprang backwards from him, panting for breath and wiping the blood from his brow, spitting the excess blood and saliva on the deck.

The triumph Ranma felt at striking such a visibly grievous wound barely lasted a heartbeat, as the formless mass of twitching green ooze swelled together and reformed into a perfectly unharmed and intact torso. Gasparde grinned madly, looming ominously over his smaller opponent.

"Not gonna lie, that actually stung! But it's still useless - nothing you do can touch me!"

He charged forward, swinging his massive fists at Ranma in a surprisingly swift combo, sending the young martial artist leaping and twisting frantically in an effort to stay out of the hulking pirate captain's clutches.

'Shit! Nabiki wasn't joking - these Logia fruits are a whole new level of danger; I don't dare touch him for risk of getting stuck!'

"What's wrong, boy? I haven't had my fill yet! You'd better let me enjoy this fight!" Gasparde jeered, continuing to swing wildly at Ranma, who found himself hard-pressed to dodge the onslaught.

'An' to make things worse, this jerk's not only got his own personal cheatmode, he's almost as fast and as strong as that bastard Commodore Sukumvit!'

"You're fast, but how long can you keep it up? But I'm getting bored of the kid gloves; let's take things up a notch!" Gasparde announced. His hands suddenly turned a sickly bright green, melting like candles that had been left in the summer sun before reforming into jagged, faceted blades of crystalized candy.

'Oh, you have gotta be fucking with me!'

With a new sense of urgency, Ranma threw himself into his efforts to dodge, pushing himself to the limit to avoid being sliced open or skewered as Gasparde wielded his weaponized limbs with deft, aggressive motions.

'Can this get any worse?!'

A massive thunderclap split the air, and the sky suddenly opened up, raindrops pouring down in a thick sheet that slammed into everybody standing in the open like a shroud from on high.

'I didn't even say that out loud!'

Meanwhile, aboard the Stormbringer...

"And, of course, cue the rain," Ryoga grumbled, now soaking wet and quite abundantly female, which Anaguma was gawking at.

"Given those clouds, were you really surprised?" Ukyo asked.

"Airen taking a long time," Shampoo noted, having joined them on the deck by this point, where she was tending to the sullen Shuraiya in her role as the crew's nurse.

"You didn't see that Gasparde guy - he didn't look like a pushover. Plus, Ranma hasn't faced a Devil Fruit since, what, Warship Island back at the start of the Grand Line?" Ryoga commented.

"Maybe we should help him?" Miriam suggested.

Nabiki let out a bark of dark laughter. "He'd never permit it! Stupid martial artists and their pride... always has to fight one on one..."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense..." the wotan muttered, but she didn't seem convinced.

Kodachi, on the other hand, was staring uneasily out into the open ocean. "Does anyone else think there's something ominous about this weather?"

"Now that you mention it..." Ukyo agreed, rubbing her chin.

"Didn't the bookkeeper back on Hannabal Island say something about Partia Island?" Harumi interjected.

"Yes, he said it was known for its..." Nabiki began, only to trail off in horror, realization dawning on not only her face, but the faces of all the other Kamikaze Pirates as well.

"CYCLONES!" they shouted as one, looking at each other in terror.

"To your stations! We must be ready to leave the instant Ranma-darling has returned!" Kodachi barked, snapping into the leadership role on pure instinct and sending the rest of the Kamikaze Pirates scattering like roaches in response to her commands.

And in the depths of the Salamander...

Biera frantically worked at the controls for the boiler, pulling levers and spinning wheels. From all around him came the whooshing of flames and the ever-rising pitch of whistling steam, an audible protestation from the machinery as the pressure began to build to unprecedented levels.

Staring into the flames that were the steam engine's heart, Biera mournfully shook his head. "I'm sorry. It must be painful, but I'm here with you... and I'll be with you until the end. I know it's not much of a mercy, but it's one I should have given you long ago, rather than let that wicked man misuse you like he has. I know Anaguma promised that those pirates were different... but I can't let you serve the cause of evil any more. Whoever wins this fight, they won't have you!"

Back above...

"And now you're a woman? Did you really think that would make me take it easier on you?" Gasparde sneered.

"Not even remotely!" Ranma spat, backflipping out of the way of another overhead strike from the hulking pirate, who was now easily twice her height.

Even as she touched down, Ranma's hands flashed out and snatched up some jagged shards of wood that had been left on the floor from a nearby broken wall or barrel. She launched these at her foe at supersonic speeds, scoring direct hits; her four makeshift daggers stabbed deep into both eyes, the center of the forehead and Gasparde's heart.

...All of it to no avail. The shards drooped as Gasparde's flesh ran like honey around them, the wounds sagging open until gravity took over and pulled the wood out of his body with grotesque wet slurps. The sickly green cavities gaped at Ranma in mockery, then sealed shut, leaving behind a perfectly uninjured Devil Fruit user, his face contorted into a maniacal grin.

"Don't you understand? It's useless! You can't hurt me!" Gasparde proclaimed, bellowing with laughter at Ranma's efforts.

'He's right. Brute force is useless here, but I can't keep dodging forever... Gotta try the Hiryu Shoten Ha; even if his body's made outta goop, getting sucked into a whirlwind can't do anybody any good!'

Inhaling deeply, Ranma exhaled slowly, embracing the mindset of icy detachment needed to perform the technique. She let the icy ki suffuse her body, seething beneath her skin and seeping from her pores to infuse itself into the air around her.

"Pathetic fool!"

Gasparde's contemptuous snarl was the only warning Ranma had before the ex-Marine was looming in front of her, terrifyingly swift for such a big man. Freed from fear through her training, Ranma dodged at the last moment, narrowly staying ahead of the follow-up strikes as she began to step and skip backwards, beginning the spiral needed to complete her most powerful attack.

"Do you intend to fight, or to dance?" Gasparde demanded. A wave of shimmering dark green swept across his right arm, which suddenly exploded forward, the limb extending impossibly outwards like something out of a Western cartoon.

Even Ranma couldn't move fast enough to dodge the enlarged, open hand now rocketing towards her face, and instead instinctively flung up her hands to block the strike. She felt the impact of Gasparde's open palm slamming into her own wrists reverberate through her bones... but she couldn't have expected the strange sizzling, crackling noise that ensued, nor the sudden bellow of anguish from her opponent.

Suddenly, the hand fell away - literally, the whole appendage dropped to the deck and partially shattered at Ranma's feet. The formerly dark green semi-liquid candy was now a pale green, almost white, and had broken like a glass ornament. Staring down at it, Ranma blinked in confusion before glancing up at Gasparde.

The candy logia was clutching his right arm, which now ended in a jagged stump of pale green sharp shards where his wrist had been. He stared at it in a mixture of fury and disbelief, and it took several seconds before the crystalline edges began to crack, dark green syrup welling up from within and swallowing the paler crystals before reforming into a human hand once more.

"How did you do that?! What kind of Devil Fruit grants you genderbending and energy blasts and freezing powers? It makes no sense!" Gasparde roared.

Fortunately for Ranma, as was so often the case, the adrenaline had kicked the genderbender's brain into overdrive, and it was analyzing everything about the situation.

'What the hell just happened? I'm not that cold! Wait... he said the Moko Takabisha actually hurt him, even if he regenerated... what if whatever it is that lets Logias shift between flesh an' whatever can't block ki energy the way it does kinetic? I mean, getting hurt by ki is basically getting punched in the soul, so that makes sense... and candy syrup's got a really high cooling point; I remember talking to this one candy maker when I was a kid. Which means... if I charge myself up with cold ki, I can actually hurt this sonuvvabitch!'

As the rain poured down in increasingly thick sheets of liquid, matting her hair and running in rivulets down her face, Ranma began to grin a cruel, feral grin, before she caught herself and forced it down.

'Focus, idiot! Feel nothing; embrace the void!'

Once more she inhaled and exhaled, allowing the chill to emanate from her very core. Her skin began to crackle with a layer of rimefrost, her breath coming in plumes of frigid mist as the essence of cold mixed with the abundant water around her. Then her eyes snapped open and she lunged towards Gasparde, silent as the grave but with murder in her heart.

Gasparde swung at her, but the smaller, faster pirate wove nimbly around his fist and pummeled at his torso. And this time, instead of sticking fast, Ranma felt the sensation of flesh impacting flesh - perhaps with a little more give than was natural, but refreshingly solid, as the pained bellow echoing in her ears proved.

A retaliatory punch sent Ranma leaping out of reach, which also gave her a chance to look at her work. Where her fists had landed, Gasparde's flesh had changed into the same pale-green, frostbitten looking crystals, which refused to move with the rest of him, causing the jagged edges to cut into his tender skin before his will overcame the freezing and enveloped them in a gooey layer of syrup, transmuting the wounds back into uninjured flesh.

"You think this changes things? So you have a little trick up your sleeve - it's still not enough to beat me!" Gasparde roared defiantly, definitely not smiling now.

Ranma just stared at him coolly, before permitting one of the corners of her mouth to quirk upwards in a dismissive smirk that made the hulking pirate captain she was facing turn red with fury, veins visibly pulsing on his forehead.

"You think you're so clever!" Gasparde roared, even as he suddenly shot his arms forward as shapeless streamers of reaching green slime.

Ranma exploded forward, weaving deftly between the writhing candy tentacles. Her hands slashed out in knife-hand strikes at the side of syrupy appendage, her touch freezing the sweet goo and leaving them simultaneously frozen through and half-severed, their own weight tearing them in half and leaving Gasparde bellowing in pain as the temporarily frozen ends flailed instinctively. Whilst his arms were momentarily unavailable, Ranma closed the distance between them and launched her assault; Gasparde attempted to shield himself by sprouting a forest of spiky candy crystals from his body, but this was useless against somebody who had undergone the torturous training of the Parlay du Foi Gras; Ranma simply aimed her strikes for the fleshy points at the base of the spikes, hammering her foe with brutal precision.

Back aboard the Stormbringer...

"All the preparations are made, Kodachi!" Nabiki cried, shouting to be heard over the ever-growing rain and the wind.

"Good timing! That storm is getting closer by the minute, it's heading straight for us!" Kodachi announced, clutching the wheel for grim death.

"But Ranchan's still not back yet!" Ukyo wept.

"And my grandpa's still aboard the Salamander - please, you gotta save him!" Anaguma begged.

"Shampoo go - find old man, get airen, be back fast," the ship's resident zoan proclaimed, already shifting to hybrid form and jogging towards the deck.

"Hurry! If you're not back soon, we'll have to leave without you, and you can't swim anymore!" Kodachi shouted after her in warning.

Inside the Salamander...

Shampoo careened through the halls of the enemy ship like a hyper-destructive pinball, smashing through any doors and sometimes even walls that made the mistake of getting in her way as she followed her ears to the boiler room.

'Darling was busy fighting with that brute Gasparde, and it seemed like he was having a tough time of it. Why did his foe keep turning into viridian ooze? That must be his Devil Fruit power... wherefore art though, Biera? I must help my beloved!'

One final running kick and she smashed through the walls into the boiler room. She was almost deafened by the cacophony that greeted her, with gauges screaming and steam whistling and hissing.

The little old man standing before the open boiler looked over at her with naked shock. "Young lady, that's no way to behave!"

"Zip it! Old man come with Shampoo; Anaguma very worried about you, and Shampoo very worried about her Ranma!" the zoan barked, leaping down from the higher perch she had emerged on so that she was on the boiler room floor with Biera.

Biera just shook his head. "Please, go back to Anaguma and make sure he gets away safe. Don't worry about me..."

"Shampoo not leaving you here, so get stupid idea out of head. Now, you come, or Shampoo knock you out and carry you?" The Chinese Amazon demanded, raising a clenched fist in warning.

"Would you speak to your own grandmother like that?!" Biera protested.

"Great-grandmother? No. But not just because she beat Shampoo black and blue. Great-grandmother no be so silly as to stay here to die! Now you come with Shampoo!"

An affronted Biera drew himself up as tall as he could. "Listen here, young lady!"

BONK!

"Shampoo warn you!" the zoan spat, even as she dragged the now-unconscious old man from the small crater she had smashed him into. Slinging him over her shoulder, she glanced uneasily at the various dials around her, which were squealing and sliding their waving needles far too close to the red-marked "Danger" zones for her liking, and then sprang away, fleeing back to the deck as fast as she could.

Moments later...

"Airen! Airen, we must leave!" Shampoo cried as she emerged onto the deck, spotting that Ranma was still trading blows with her hulking opponent.

"Little busy here, Shampoo!" Ranma called back absently.

"Airen no understand! Big-big wind storm coming, drown us all!" the zoan protested.

"I'm aware!" Ranma replied in the same tone, beating a tattoo against Gasparde's ribs and leaving him clutching his side in pain.

"Ranma also aware that this ship going to blow up?!" Shampoo snapped, having lost her patience.

"What?!" Ranma yelped, finally turning away from Gasparde in her sheer shock at this revelation, only for the ex-Marine to punch her in the back of the head so hard she went flying through the air, skidding to a halt at Shampoo's feet.

"Airen!" Shampoo yelped in equal parts shock and guilt, covering her mouth with a free hand.

"I was enjoying this little brawl... but sabotaging my ship is taking things too far! Now I'm going to kill you both and make this old fool undo what he's done..." Gasparde snarled, curling his hand into a claw before stiffening it into a bladed array of crystalline spikes.

Before he could stab at Shampoo with it, Ranma suddenly surged to life, springing into a handstand that became an upwards leap, powering a twin-heeled mule-kick to Gasparde's jaw that sent the rival pirate captain flying backwards.

"Shampoo, get outta here! You gotta tell the others to set sail - I'll hold him off!" Ranma shouted authoritatively, twisting through the air like an eel to land so that she was interposing herself between Shampoo and Gasparde.

"Shampoo not leave you!" the Chinese Amazon protested.

"You ain't gotta choice - this guy's a Logia, you can't hurt him! We don't got long, get to the others and get'em outta here! Don't worry about me, I'll be right behind you, I promise!"

Shampoo hesitated, biting her bottom lip, but the sight of Gasparde advancing, little more than a writhing mass of semi-translucent green slime sprouting his still-human head and myriad flailing tentacles, convinced her of the veracity of Ranma's claim.

"You come back to Shampoo!" she ordered her genderbent future husband, before turning and sprinting off. She leapt clean over the side of the Salamander, twisting in midair and using a free hand to slam her claws into the side of the hull, scraping massive gouges in the wood as she controlled her descent. She hit the Stormbringer's deck hard, powerful legs absorbing the shock, the thunderous impact drawing the attention of the rest of the crew.

"Grandpa!" cried Anaguma, visibly tearing up.

"Where's Ranchan?!" Ukyo demanded.

"Airen say - Airen say we set sail, now! Big ship going to blow up! He coming, but we go now, now!" The zoan shouted, gesturing wildly for emphasis.

"We can't just leave him!" Ukyo protested.

"But it won't do him any good if we get blown up!" Nabiki rebutted her.

Ryoga glanced around, taking in the hesitation on Kodachi and Shampoo's face, and the heated glare that Ukyo and Nabiki were exchanging. She sighed, cracked her neck, and squared her shoulders.

"As First Mate, I'm taking charge! We're setting sail for that little island Umok saw; Ranma will catch us up! Shampoo, to the engine room! Miriam, grab the anchor and tow us - that cyclone's going to hit us any minute, and who knows when that ship will explode?"

Everybody turned as one to Ryoga, staring at their first mate in visible shock. A vein throbbed in the boy-turned-girl's temple before she bellowed, "NOW!"

At once, everyone scrambled to do as they had been told. The splash of the ship's wotan diving overboard was barely audible over the crashing of the waves, but her efforts were felt almost immediately as the Stormbringer suddenly surged into life, speeding away from the Salamander. Even as they sailed off in the direction of safety, Ryoga turned to watch the Salamander.

'Ranma, you better make it out of this alive! I won't let you get out of getting back to Nerima so I can beat you senseless in front of Akane and prove I'm better than you!'

Aboard the Salamander...

Ranma panted hugely, lungs burning and her whole body trembling from effort. Across from her, Gasparde was slowly oozing back into an upright human shape from amidst the wreckage into which he had been punched, the frozen patches of crystalized candy where Ranma's blows had landed dissolving back into syrup.

"You surprised me... imagine, a no-name bounty-less pirate like you challenging me, with my 95 million berie bounty... but you can't defeat me, even with your little trick," Gasparde declared darkly, now fully restored to his human form.

At that, Ranma smiled. "I don't need to beat you, not anymore... I just need to get away from you!"

Just as she was about to pull out the Saotome Final Attack, however, the world around her dissolved into thunder as the ship's boilers reached their limits and exploded, tearing the Salamander apart!

"Ranma!" wailed three anguished women, collapsing to their knees on the rocky shores of the small island where they had taken shelter.

Nabiki stared wide-eyed at the sinking ruins of the ship, half of it having already vanished beneath the waves and the other half tilted enormously, clearly going to follow in short order.

"He-He's going to be just fine. That's right, n-nothing stops Ranma for long! He's been through worse, you all know that!" She insisted, not sounding too convinced herself.

"Damn you, Ranma, you don't get to run away from our final battle like this!" Ranma shouted, waving her fist at the wreck.

"I'm going back for him!" Miriam announced, already wading into the water.

"But the storm!" Harumi protested.

"I'm half-fishman, I can't drown, but he sure can! Don't worry, I'll be fine," she assured him, reaching out to brush his cheek with a fingertip, then leaping into the deeper water and disappearing with a mighty splash, her dorsal fin cutting through the water as she raced off towards the wreck of the Salamander.

A pile of broken timbers shook and then collapsed as Ranma violently surfaced from within, coughing as she did and spitting a mouthful of blood to the side. "Pfeh! Wow, Shampoo wasn't kidding... damn, that hurt..."

"You've cost me everything!"

"Hoh, geeze..." Ranma sighed, standing up and trying to stretch some of the creaks out of her protesting joints, staring wearily at the looming form of Gasparde.

"Ain't you had enough yet? You've lost yet crew, you've lost yer ship, and in case you ain't figured it out yet, that's a cyclone bearing straight for us! Give it up, man! Walk away whilst you still have your life!" Ranma complained.

"You don't get to say that! I'm going to tear that mocking tongue from your head, weakling!" the ex-marine thundered, even as he began to charge towards Ranma, hands upraised and shaping themselves into weapons of hardened sugar crystals.

'Damnit all, I ain't got time fer this! I've been hurting him, but I can't stop him... the cold ki obviously ain't penetrating deep enough - need to flood him with it, saturate his core. Wait... the Moko Takabisha, but with ice? Gotta give it a try, it's my only choice, only got one shot!'

Closing her eyes, Ranma focused her mind and soul once more, letting the chill permeate her flesh as she reached down into her soul where the unflames danced. Grasping the frigid fire of her spirit, even as the cold burned like the blood was freezing in her veins, she ignored the pain and seized it tight, dragging it forcibly out through her arms and forcing it forward, her eyes snapping open and her mouth opening in a scream of defiance and pain.

Gasparde was looming over the smaller pirate captain, hands sweeping down towards her head, when the blue-black energy wave erupted from her outstretched hands and slammed into his chest. Crunching, crackling noises filled Ranma's ears as Gasparde went white, every single inch of him now covered in a thick layer of rimefrost, his whole body seizing solid in midswing...

In fact, the momentum of his own charge proved to be his downfall, as his flash-frozen body proved unable to bear the strain. A sound like glass breaking, but deeper and slower, filled the air as Gasparde's arms broke clean off, snapping along their lengths and revealing jagged edges of pale green candy crystals, before his ankles followed suit. On pure instinct, Ranma dodged aside as the tilted deck allowed gravity to do its thing, sending the frozen Logia crashing down its length to ultimately plunge into the churning waves below, where Gasparde sank like a stone. One moment he was there, and the next, he was gone.

Ranma stared into the dark water, her whole body trembling with exertion, panting like a steam locomotive on the verge of a breakdown. Already drained from the fight and extensive ki channeling she had done during her battle with the mad ex-marine, the stress of a never-before-seen ki technique and the shock of watching somebody die came crashing down onto her head like a ton of bricks.

"T...Tol'ja ya shouldda called it quits..."

And with that, she fell face-first to the deck, swiftly passing out of consciousness as she slid down towards the same depths that had swallowed her opponent...

?

'...Hell feels a lot more soft, warm and fluffy than I imagined...'

As first thoughts upon regaining consciousness went, it probably wasn't the weirdest that could have popped into Ranma's head, but it was probably up there. Opening his eyes, he blinked as he adjusted to the sudden intrusion of sunlight, before peering around at his surroundings.

'...Hell looks a lot like my cabin on the Stormbringer...' he bemusedly thought.

"Airen! You awake!"

"Gaaah!" Ranma yelped in shock as the sudden jubilant shout was followed by Shampoo throwing herself onto the bed and wrapping her arms around him in a passionate embrace.

"Sh-Shampoo...! Crushing me...!" He choked out, struggling feebly in an effort to pry loose the overzealous Amazon zoan.

Shampoo gasped in shock and immediately let Ranma go, much to his relief. As he gasped for air, she suddenly rolled out of the bed and sprang for the door, shouting a the top of her lungs, "He awake! Ranma awake!"

Chaos promptly ensued as the entirety of the Kamikaze Pirates poured into their captain's bedroom. Ranma found himself buried under two weeping women as Ukyo and Kodachi pounced on him before he could even try to get out of the bed, with Shampoo irkedly drumming her foot on the floor as she watched.

"Sheesh, Ranma, who knew you were such a drama queen?" Nabiki playfully chided him, but she was smiling as she said it, sitting at the foot of the bed.

"Damn you, Ranma, what were you thinking? You don't get to die that easy!" Ryoga barked, crossing his shoulders and huffing loudly.

"One at a time, one at a time!" Ranma protested at the top of his lungs.

The room promptly fell silent, and both Ukyo and Kodachi went limp enough that he was able to push them aside and sit up, staring around the room.

"Okay, obviously, I survived that fight on the Salamander, but how'd I get here?" He asked.

"Miriam rescued you," Harumi declared proudly from where he was standing beside the wotan, who grinned confidently.

"Well, thanks, Miriam, you really came through... what happened after that, though?"

"After Miriam carried you back to us, we placed you in your quarters to rest. As soon as the storm passed we resumed our journey to Partia, and we won the race," Kodachi announced happily.

"Hah! I told you we had this in the bag, Ryoga," Ranma crowed with glee.

"There's just two little details we need to fill you in on," Kodachi interjected, looking a little less certain.

"Three, if you count the revelation that Anaguma is actually Shuraiya's long-lost sister and he wants to thank you for avenging their village and reuniting the two of them, despite the awkward reunion," Ukyo added.

"Okay... what's the first one?" Ranma asked, giving Kodachi a confused look.

"Well, that first night, after all the chaos was over with, we found this in our gallery... we think it used to be a custard apple," Kodachi said, handing a fruit over to Ranma. Sure enough, it looked like a custard apple, but was covered in spiraling patterns.

"What is this thing?" Ranma wondered aloud, bemusedly turning it around and around in his hands.

"Well, according to the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, when a Devil Fruit's user dies, a Devil Fruit 'reincarnates', possessing the nearest fruit of the appropriate kind and imbuing it with its power, ready to be eaten again. So, that would make this... Gasparde's Devil Fruit, reborn," Nabiki explained.

Ranma stared at the former custard apple with renewed interest. "The Candy-Candy Fruit. A Logia made of candy syrup. Apparently, the Pirate Empress called Big Mom really, really wants to get her hands on this Devil Fruit..."

"Really? Good to know, that could be useful," Nabiki observed.

"You said there were two things; what's the other one?" Ranma asked, looking between them all.

"Ah, it's in the hold... it's easier to show than to tell," Ukyo replied, rubbing the back of her head uncertainly.

"How bad could it be?" Ranma asked, even as he stood up and, once he was sure that he trusted his legs to hold him, led the way out of his quarters.

Minutes later...

"...Why is there a robot girl in our loot stash?!"

Chapter End & Closing Notes

And that's where we'll be leaving it this time! Hopefully, our next chapter, which will adapt the Giant Mechanical Soldier of Karakuri Castle OAV, won't take too long to complete, at which point we'll be able to answer your questions...

And I wouldn't normally do this, but I'm going to give away a little something... Nabiki is going to ultimately be getting a Mythic Zoan. The problem is that I can't choose between two specific models; the Bat-Bat Model Type: Vampire (though my homebrew version's power is "blood logia" rather than canon's "youth transfer" - think Skarlet from Mortal Kombat) and the Lizard-Lizard Model Type: Fafnir (aka the "Western Dragon" to Kaido and Momo's "Eastern Dragon"). Because I can't choose, I'm taking a poll; there's a tally on the SpaceBattles thread until December 10, or you can post a review here about which one you want. Come Xmas Day, one way or another, I'll finalize the results.